Raipur, Jan 23 (IANS) India won the toss and elected to bowl first against New Zealand in the second T20I, here at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium, Raipur. India lead the series 1-0 after winning the first match of the series in Nagpur.

India have made two changes to their XI, with Harshit Rana and Kuldeep Yadav coming in for Jasprit Bumrah and Axar Patel. New Zealand have rung in three alterations of their own: Zak Foulkes, Matt Henry and Tim Seifert are included, while Kyle Jamieson, Kristian Clarke and Tim Robinson make way.

India captain Suryakumar Yadav said, “We will look to bowl first. Already there is a bit of dew out there; we haven’t chased in a while, so I want to chase tonight. I think it looks good. The same wicket was used for the ODIs. Hopefully, lots of runs. We play every game, and we try to get better. We are not perfect. We would look to try to do the same things again; we will try to do the same in bowling, fielding, and batting. We have 2 changes. Axar is missing out because he got hit in the last game. Bumrah is resting. Harshit and Kuldeep come in.”

New Zealand captain Mitchell Santner said, “Would have bowled as well. The ground’s already wet, and there is some dew already. Every time you play against a quality side, there is always something to learn, which we did. The way they came out with the bat, throughout the whole innings, they came out pretty hard. We know that now on the bowling side, so we gotta be a bit clearer with our plans and try and squeeze them a little bit more. We have got 3 changes. Seifert’s in for Robinson. Kristian Clarke is out, Zak Foulkes is in, and Matt Henry is in for Kyle Jamieson.”

Playing XIs:

New Zealand: Tim Seifert, Devon Conway (wk), Rachin Ravindra, Glenn Phillips, Mark Chapman, Daryl Mitchell, Mitchell Santner (c), Zak Foulkes, Matt Henry, Ish Sodhi, Jacob Duffy

India: Sanju Samson (wk), Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav (c), Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Rinku Singh, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy, Harshit Rana, Kuldeep Yadav

–IANS

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